I finally decided to attempt to get my modem working, it's a winmodem. I downloaded scanmodem ran it and it said to download and try the slmodem driver, so I downloaded it installed it ran modprobe slamr, /usr/sbin/slmodemd --country=USA /dev/ttys0 (which created a link) but I when I tried to dial out from kppp it say's that my modem is busy everytime.

I looked on Google and found that people have had better luck with other programs so I figured I'd give it a shot.

I tried minicom and I know this sounds stupid but I couldn't figure out how to use it. I did a man minicom and read through it and it still seems cryptic. I tried a setup but all I saw was initialization string settings that I don't want to play with. How do I start minicom and then dial a specific number with it?

Do you have call waiting? It can give you some problems and there is a way to disable
call waiting in the dial-up string. Also the default slackware install links /dev/modem -> /dev/ttyS0.
The smartlink software should overwrite the link to /dev/modem -> /dev/ttySL0. Then make sure in pppsetup that
you select /dev/modem.

No I don't have call waiting. I created a link, I didn't do a pppsetup however. I'll try it now.

nope it still says it's busy

Can you log on as root using "ppp-on"?